


Suffer A Sea Change

by tortoiseshells



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: (mostly), Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Missing Scene, Movie: Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, canon-typical references to the Church of England, really obvious metaphors, the canon's more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules, thoughts on matrimony & its possible discontents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tortoiseshells/pseuds/tortoiseshells
Summary: Between Rumrunner's Isle and Isla de Muerta, Elizabeth Swann and James Norrington independently realize how far beyond their respective understandings of the world they’ve travelled, and grapple with the futures they're choosing. Jack Sparrow is not quite as unhelpful in this as he might be.
Relationships: (onesided), Elizabeth Swann/Will Turner, James Norrington & Elizabeth Swann, James Norrington & Jack Sparrow, James Norrington/Elizabeth Swann, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Suffer A Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [islacruces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/islacruces/gifts).



**i.**

_Appropriate_. That was the word that her mind supplied, looking around the great cabin of the _Dauntless_. Entirely _appropriate_. Neither extravagant nor Spartan, neat as the proverbial pin, with nary a perfectly-polished trophy sword out of place – wide windows ceremoniously admitting tidy squares of light into the room, at regular angles to the regular black-and-white checkered floor cloth. If any man could organize the world so that the patches of sun appeared to be at perfect right angles to his painted canvas floor-coverings, it _would_ have been James Norrington.

Elizabeth Swann did not huff or sigh or stamp her feet, but only because (clad only in a filthy chemise or not), she was the well-bred daughter of Weatherby and Portia Swann – and _yes_ , because years on, she still vaguely felt as though the late Mademoiselle Dupont was hovering like a great malign crow – always ready to drill Elizabeth on her comportment at the earliest signs of mutiny from her ungrateful, bull-headed charge. Her head was spinning, and all the sins and fears of the past several days were coming home to roost; she was sun-burnt, _exhilarated_ , exhausted, extraordinarily thirsty; while Jack Sparrow had been snoring into the sand, clutching a coconut in an entirely inappropriate way, she’d worked through the humid night to build herself a signal-fire.

She had earned the right to rest, dammit. And she would be marrying the _Dauntless_ ’s commanding officer soon enough, so he could damn well lend her his cot for an hour.

At least, that was the thought that was propelling her, though she resolutely tried to leave all _other_ thoughts of marriage and what followed in the bright day-cabin, with its mahogany chairs and worn charts and trophies. Transitive properties, possession, children. The legal alchemy that would turn Miss Elizabeth Swann into Mrs. Elizabeth Norrington, transfer her from the keeping of one roof to another, like a reset jewel, an ornament. Trust, more in the legal sense than of the personal, though when Elizabeth was honest with herself – as she had had to be, stumbling through the oppressive darkness on that lonely spit of land, thinking what her best chances were for survival – she _did_ trust James Norrington. Had trusted him to be looking for her, had trusted him to _save_ her.

(He hadn’t disappointed her – and, God, had she been relieved when she saw the great black-chequered sides of the _Dauntless_! Safety for her – and a ship to save Will.)

She had trusted James Norrington, too, that he had _something_ in him that she could touch, some way to make him do what she wanted – what she _needed_ him to do. Will Turner was a good man, and didn’t deserve to die alone in a forgotten cave, to save a crew of soulless pirates from the consequences of their wickedness. She didn’t _want_ to live in a world without Will. She wouldn’t be the kind of person who could go back safely to Port Royal and act as though kind, stupid, brave, _lovely_ Will Turner had been nothing better than the apprentice of a drunken blacksmith – as though he’d been nothing to her at all. She’d thought to herself, light-headed from the rum, that she would do anything – _anything_ – to keep Will alive.

At the end of her praying and bargaining, Elizabeth had been right: there was something to austere Commodore Norrington – sense of pride, fair-play, what slender friendship she’d held onto since being a coltish girl forever underfoot on the _Dauntless_ ’s voyage to Port Royal. She knew him better than to think it was all cold ambition, but –

He wasn’t devoid of it, was he?

She shuddered a bit, leaning against the thin door that separated the day-cabin from Norrington’s personal quarters, feeling as cold and dizzy as she had after the first mouthful of rum hit her empty stomach – or in the few moments before she had lost the thread of his conversation entirely and plummeted into the sea beneath Fort Charles. His cabin was a small, close, hot space. A tidy desk; a set of oilskins on a peg; a locked chest with his name inlaid. The presentation sword Will Turner had made for him, that her father had commissioned and given, given pride of place in brackets on the wall. A blank-sided cot that had the scent of lye, nothing else.

She would have married him anyway, she told herself. James Norrington was a good man; she knew she could marry far worse.

(That didn’t mean she loved him, she thought as padded hesitantly up to the cot, _his cot_ , just as the cabin was his and she would be as well; just as he wasn’t even his own person, not really, not when it was easier to think of him as “the Commodore” than as “James”. Elizabeth swallowed her nerves and tumbled into the high-sided canvas, staring up at the tell-tale compass suspended above her. _West_ , said the card, wavering only slightly with the pitch and roll, the groaning progress of the _Dauntless_ and iron tonnage and her hundreds of souls.

 _How auspicious_ , she thought, closing her eyes and curling onto her side. She felt alone, and small, and suddenly, horribly, afraid of her future.)

**ii.**

“I never offered my congratulations,” said Jack Sparrow, ingratiatingly, somehow managing to give off the impression of insubordinate slouching without actually _slouching_ or leaning against anything – as there was very little for him to lean against, standing in the middle of the _Dauntless_ ’s quarterdeck. 

James Norrington, who had never slouched in his life, didn’t bother to disguise his impatience with their _guest_ , nor did he offer any response of his own. Perhaps Sparrow, as averse to following orders as he was any semblance of personal hygiene, would respond better to being led to silence by example – and so Norrington rolled his eyes and sighed, keeping an eye on the wavering compass in the binnacle before the _Dauntless_ ’s great wheel, acutely, _nervously_ aware that they were standing in to danger, against a foe who had bested him before.

Even if it was by dint of surprise.

(The qualifier brought him no peace; no man liked to lose, but to lose at the cost of innocent lives hurt the soul worse than it ever would his pride.)

“ ‘S not every day a young man gets lined up to tie the knot. As it were,” the pirate continued, as though he wasn’t surrounded by eight-hundreds of the King’s men, and only kept from irons by Elizabeth Swann’s sense of obligation to the man, “Not been one for it myself.”

Pointedly, Norrington said nothing.

He couldn’t imagine Sparrow undertaking anything _discreetly_ , much less _reverently_ or bound by _the fear of God_ , and very nearly said so aloud. But Sparrow (handsome, laughing, insufferable, _canny_ Jack Sparrow) was not to be underestimated again – and Norrington could think of few things he wanted less than to listen to him offer well-wishes on an event that Norrington was – _well_ –

It was marriage, wasn’t it? Elizabeth liked him well enough, he’d known that since she’d been a slip of a girl whose hair never remained braided, since they’d found themselves unlikely allies against the worst excesses of Port Royal society. That was just it: _liked_ him. _Well enough_. _A fine man_ , she’d called him – and he was _proud_ to be named such; he had _worked_ to deserve the compliment, since there was no chance it has been inherited. But (he thought, hesitantly, feeling as though he were groping his way through an uncharted passage through caution and the lead-line alone) she meant it differently. Not in the inflection of her voice; he’d spent enough time learning to read her – something else. Her posture, maybe – all Miss Swann, and nothing of _Elizabeth_ , who’d learned every bolthole and passage of the King’s House to hide in, who read Viola with more spirit than he’d ever managed for Hotspur. It wasn’t her – a mirror, maybe. A reflection of what she thought he wanted.

(In retrospect, perhaps he should have realized sooner what his inclination for the histories, and hers for the comedies, might mean.)

He repeated it to himself: _it was marriage_. Uneven regard seemed to be more common than mutually-felt affection; this was far better than his parent’s match, where the Admiral’s cold brutality and both parties’ stiff pride made the house as welcoming as a crypt and twice as cold – he didn’t even have the words at five to express relief to be taken from that place, even if it left him alone aboard ship. There was more happiness in a day which might end with the back of the Admiral’s hand than in all the sinuous marquetry and soft velvet drapery that his grandfather had been able to purchase; he was _someone_ , aboard ship. James Norrington had understood it from the first.

He and Elizabeth could do better than that. _Surely they could_ , he had told himself, even though he was sure she was lying about her acceptance, the condition that she promised was not. Elizabeth had shut the door to the Great Cabin definitively behind her – and left him here, by the wheel. Ignoring Sparrow.

It was just marriage. The solemnization of matrimony said nothing about happiness.

James Norrington didn’t want to think on it any further, and so he didn’t: He couldn’t provide appropriate attire for her (another portent of the future, he feared – before shearing that thought off like gangrenous rot) but there was something to be done, and his steward, Angwen, to do it; whoever they found at Isla de Muerta would have to be fought, and so he called Captain Sackville and the _Dauntless_ ’s lieutenants to the table in Sackville’s quarters (evicting Governor Swann, who had paced himself into a nervous slumber in a heavy chair). Through his officer the _Dauntless_ hummed with familiar, grim preparations: the fetching of match-tubs, the sharpening of cutlasses, fresh flints for the marine’s firelocks. He’d known all this activity since before he could rightly spell – and despite the damnably knowing look on Sparrow’s face throughout the afternoon into the evening, for a time, Norrington felt reasonably content with the world he could see and affect – all save the quarterdeck and the great cabin.

 _This is not a portent_ , he told himself, because that was what he wanted to hear.

**iii.**

Into the second dogwatch, Peters, at the wheel, let out a startled yelp – and brought the attention of the watch to the binnacle. Gillette, standing by with the glass under his arm, looking for all the world as though he’d been stationed next to the head and not Jack Sparrow, looked into the cabinet, and barely choked down an oath.

“What?” Norrington’d called out – snapped, really – only to be summoned over to look at the ship’s compass. To his dismay, the instrument was lazily spinning, wobbling like a child’s top.

 _Damn_ – and biting that curse down, he set his men to checking for the expected interferences, though none were likely to have occurred. No one had driven iron nails into the casing or the cabinet; no great guns had been shifted in all the preparations for expected action. It simply –

Had decided not to work, he supposed.

Sparrow was the only soul on the quarterdeck unbothered by this turn, though Norrington really couldn’t have expected anything else. The pirate had a nearly unnatural ability to escape by the luckiest turns and widest shots; why shouldn’t he treat the temporary reversal of natural laws as anything other than a prime jest? After Norrington had sent Gillette down to fetch out another compass, Sparrow fairly winked at him.

 _That bastard_ knew all along this would happen.

“Sparrow,” he began, in the tone of voice he knew made the midshipmen fear for their lives.

Sparrow responded with an insouciant salute, affecting an air of utter carelessness. “Evening, Commodore. Strange twist of fate, that.”

 _Twist, indeed_. “Is there, perhaps, some sort of magnetic anomaly on the approach to the Isla de Muerta?”

( _That you had forgot to mention_ , he thought, but didn’t say.)

“There’s a perfect ships’ graveyard beneath us; two an’ a half centuries of oak and iron lost while looking for Cortez’s gold. I imagine that might cause something of a fuss with lodestones and compasses, if one were relying on ‘em to find one’s way.”

Sparrow didn’t need to gesture for effect – though of course he did, anyway; Martin, stood in the chains with the lead-line had been marking the shallowing depths for some time now, and as the bottom came up, so did the gristly remains of centuries past. Lost ships, lost souls. A warning – his own fate, and that of hundreds, if they were not extraordinarily careful now that the fog was descending.

And yet he didn’t believe – not quite, not really – what Sparrow said, that the sunken ships on the passage to Isla de Muerta had affected the compasses so strongly. He dismissed who he could, for different instruments, to take different posts, and when the quarterdeck had been stripped down to the skeleton of the watch, Norrington turned to Sparrow: “Why is your compass not affected by – _this_?”

“It’s broken,” Sparrow replied, “Doesn’t point north, or won’t, outside of certain circumstance. Hiking m’way to the Wanki River after a bit of business with mahogany and logwood, for example – horrible time, mosquitoes as big as your ear, definitely not recommended, for all that King Jeremy is a essentially hospitable man. Hospitable as he can be, considering –”

Norrington cut Sparrow’s reminiscences about the politics of the Miskito Kingdom off impatiently. “Why is it pointing to Isla de Muerta, then?”

“It’s not.”

“Sparrow –”

“It’s the _Pearl_. And the _Pearl_ and her traitorous crew,” Sparrow said, still irritatingly cheerful, “Are at Isla de Muerta to lay up their earthly treasures, as it were – and to do in poor William Turner, who’s now both the son of a man what double-crossed them, _and_ the man who did them out of your bonny _Interceptor_.”

Norrington looked between the compass in Sparrow’s hand, holding nearly steady but from the ponderous pitch and roll of the _Dauntless_ under a full spread of canvas – and at the compass in the binnacle, which was still lazily spinning about. It made no sense – he’d riffled through his memories of reading for his Lieutenant’s examination; what he knew about magnetic errors and anomalies from some half-recalled Greek histories and sailors’ tales from Canton about wet compasses far more practical that Halley’s, and Wyche’s spotty translation of the life of João de Castro, who had at least examined those anomalies as he found them in Bombay. Anything that affected the bearing of _one_ compass ought to affect them _all_.

Which assumed that Sparrow’s compass was magnetic in the first place. Clearly, it wasn’t. Norrington had a curious, cold, dizzying feeling – that he had thrown the lives of his men, that _of the Governor of Jamaica_ and _Elizabeth_ as well, and the whole well-being of the _Dauntless_ onto the board without completely understanding the full scope of the matter. Sparrow’s compass didn’t point north; it was pointing to the _Black Pearl_ , which he had been quite content, until recently, to dismiss as an ordinary ship transformed by tales, much like men had said Edward Teach was the Devil incarnate, until Maynard had brought his head to Spotswood of Virginia.

Two possibilities were before him, and he liked neither.

The first, that Jack Sparrow, with his half-golden smile and quick wits he kept buried beneath his overly familiar demeanor, simply had a broken compass to use as a theatrical prop – one more thing to tote about the stage of his Drury Lane performance of _swashbuckling pirate_. Were this the case, then Sparrow knew the location of the Isla de Muerta – which perhaps was even an extant place, simply renamed for effect – and was guiding them there by memory alone. Certainly, Sparrow had not consulted any charts since his rescue.

The second, that Jack Sparrow was telling the truth, and that his compass worked by means either beyond the understanding of English natural philosophy, or simply occult.

(Of the two options before him, James Norrington infinitely preferred the idea that he was being taken down the garden path by a charlatan who had at least proven himself to be a skilled seaman and more intelligent than his drunken demeanor allowed, rather than that his own neatly-ordered life had somehow … brushed up against something vast and unknown, like the shadow of a great whale he’d once seen course through the deeps beneath the _Interceptor_.)

He had been silent a while, and Sparrow startled him out of his thoughts with a nearly-discrete cough, and gestured at the compass – still smiling carelessly. Like this was a stroll about High Street in Tortuga, and the prize for the most outlandish tale some stolen rum or a night at a bawdy-house. “I know that look. You’re wondering whether I’m having a laugh at your expense, or if there might be a glimmer of truth at the bottom of my well.”

“The one doesn’t exclude the other.”

“True enough, Commodore, true enough! But you are _curious_. You want to know.”

Norrington glanced over at his men on the wheel – stoic, reliable Peters, still examining his shoe-leather; and Forester, a little too interested, too curious for Norrington’s comfort. Norrington had no illusions about what kept the wooden world of His Majesty’s Navy together; and so he waved up towards the poop, the implication clear. _Not here_.

 _Fine_ , Sparrow seemed to respond, hopping up the ladder like his namesake.

James Norrington pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed, and followed – claiming the weather-side and banishing Lieutenant Hardy to the quarterdeck with a glance. He paced for a few moments, scraping his conversation together. “I will entertain the outlandish possibility,” he started, “that your compass somehow violates every natural law I have learned. How – _why_ does it point to the _Black Pearl_?”

“ ‘Cause I want it to, Commodore.”

Norrington scoffed.

“It’s what it does. Sold five years’ worth of dreams and a piece of Ponce de León’s map of the road to Bimini to a powerful witch for the damn thing,” Sparrow said, “A bargain, really; dreamless sleep’s a blessing when you get where I’ve got.”

“Your broken compass is – you expect me to believe your compass is _enchanted_?"

“I don’t expect it. Curious if you will believe it, though.”

“I don’t,” said Norrington, who was starting to feel ridiculous for even having this conversation out loud.

“Ah. How dull. And I suppose you believe Charleton, that the Morgana of the Messina Strait is just the crystal bits and bobs of the sand and antimony in the Sicilian hills and that hot sun of the Med making the sky a mirror?”

“A more likely explanation than a fairy queen of England conjuring Palladian cities off Sicily,” Norrington shot back.

Sparrow, irksome as ever, merely shrugged. “The compass points to the _Pearl_ because I want it to, Commodore. Simple as that.”

“And if you wanted it to point to something else, it would point there?”

“If I wanted it badly enough, I guess it would.”

“You are telling me the bearing changes based on what you want?”

“You’re not nearly as slow as you look, y’ know.”

He was clenching his jaw again, Norrington belatedly realized, feeling briefly as though he’d crack another tooth if he wasn’t careful – as though the little hair he hadn’t cropped wasn’t turning prematurely gray, and the old injuries – the broken bones, the puckered scar that marked a shot, the portolan lines of past sword-blows – weren’t aching more of late, as though he was too tired to keep himself knitted together.

As though he higher he climbed in the world, the more difficult everything became. There was a story from the old Greeks about that – it didn’t end well for Icarus. He loosened his jaw, and swallowed the unpleasant feeling.

Sparrow had kept up his rolling pace – his promenade, really – swinging the compass on its line like a child’s toy, while Norrington slowly counted off in his head before trusting himself to make a response. Sparrow knew where they were bound; no other compass was working. If this was a tavern game of cards, as Sparrow no doubt considered many of life’s contests, the pirate’s hand would have held most of the trumps.

“I don’t believe you,” Norrington replied, scraping together what dignity he could find in the situation.

“And why should you, Commodore? Though I have been scrupulously truthful, in this particular instance.”

_Why was talking to Sparrow like trying to nail water to a wall?_

“You want the _Black Pearl_ for yourself; I understand,” he paused, searching for what he actually _understood_ regarding the situation, “That you bear some animosity towards Barbossa and his crew. Perhaps you feel yourself indebted to Mr. Turner for his help in escaping your lawful execution. That, I believe, is true.”

“And the compass is just a compass, then?”

“It’s broken.”

Sparrow huffed, as though he had insulted the pirate’s mother, and held the compass out towards him. “Go on. See for yourself.”

“As you’ve said, I can’t know where the Isla de Muerta is, and cannot rightly ascertain whether you are lying about the bearing or not.”

“It points to what you want. Seems to me you’d be able to judge for yourself whether or not it’s broken, then – Assuming you know what it is you’re after, Commodore.”

Norrington didn’t take the compass – not right away. There wasn’t much in Sparrow that he liked or admired, wily as an old fox as he might have been –but the idea of such _clarity_ was –

It was _temptation_ itself, wasn’t it? To be able to shear away all the noise and the rubble and confusion, the way terror for his life in battle had left him with breathless, powerful moments of absolute clarity? That he’d wanted to be better than the Admiral – that he wanted to _live_ and not simply _survive_ what had been done – that he wanted to marry Elizabeth, not only for her dowry or her connections, but because of the way she laughed when she fudged a passage from Bach and that she’d intentionally spilled claret all over John Saunders to get out of dancing with the widower – A home that wasn’t as cold as Elvidene, with his father and grandfather glowering from the walls.

( _To be better than his father_ , he reminded himself – to not twist the world around him to flatter his own vanity, to offer justice. To not make those he loved miserable.)

Could it be as simple as all that? The compass just like the sun at its zenith, the steady light of the tower on Eddystone rocks either going or coming – beacons, he thought, beckoning the way to go?

“I _want_ to put an end to this business,” he said, still not taking it, ignoring Sparrow’s too-familiar, too-inviting look. Sparrow was manipulating him, and then some – Norrington knew it, but –

“Oh, go on. What’s the harm in knowing what you want, Commodore? It’s all the same to me.”

He took the old boxed compass quickly, holding his eyes closed a moment before throwing up the top.

**iv.**

Some time later, Elizabeth drifted back to consciousness – much like floatsam finds the shore, she thought: wrung out and with a disorienting bump. She could explain the latter as part of the chorus of noise that was the _Dauntless_ under sail, at least; the former – well. She didn’t feel at all rested; the high sides of the cot feeling more coffin-like than comforting.

(Her teenage self would have found no end of amusement in that, having once observed to Catharine Barstowe unkindly, but not wholly inaccurately, that James Norrington sometimes resembled nothing so much as the corpse of a man too regimented to accept death. But Catharine Barstow had become Catharine Saunders, and then after childbed fever she had become no one at all – and Mr. Saunders had never even bothered to put on the black for her, impatiently importing some sad little poor-cousin from County Antrim to marry. She’d not lasted long in the heat, either.)

She glanced up, the tell-tale compass visible even in the cabin’s half-light, swinging in shallow arcs above her, and –

_Oh?_

The card was veering aimlessly between points, too quickly to reflect reality.

She blinked, and rubbed her eyes, thinking that perhaps this was some snaking tendril of her dreams following her back into the world, or her maudlin remembrances and fears trying to convince her of things that simply weren’t real, but it wasn’t the case – North was to her left, then to her right, and all number of points in between. Hauling herself upright, Elizabeth rapped on the glass, and then the brass casing, though she didn’t expect it would do any good – and it didn’t. As if to mock her, the card gave a neat pirouette. Elizabeth felt that cold, clammy dizziness in the pit of her guts again.

 _Right_. This unsettling development wouldn’t resolve itself, and however tired she found herself feeling, she had rested long enough.

Elizabeth tumbled out of the cot ungracefully, wondering if James Norrington managed to do the same with any ability and then deciding _of course he would_ ; anyone who did something daily would manage it competently, regardless of the difficulty of the thing or one’s natural inclination. That was how she’d become a sought-after dance partner, a proficient coquette, the kind of conversationalist that men liked because she had mastered the art of being easily impressed. _Practice_. _A nice thought_ , a salve to her smarting dignity as she picked herself up off the no-doubt thoroughly holy-stoned deck, and padded back into the day cabin to collect herself.

Someone had been there while she slept; there was a bundle left out for her – a too-large shirt, breeches and stockings that (from the size) must have been volunteered by one of the young midshipmen, whose voices hadn’t even begun to crack. A brilliant-red marine’s jacket; an obviously-pinchbeck-buckled pair of shoes. She seized the clothing and retreated to hastily dress, reflecting that – well, of course there wouldn’t be a woman’s dress aboard. Sailors’ women – and occasionally their wives – could make the _Dauntless_ a sort of home, but not when danger was imminent; her fiancé or Sackville, the flag captain, was too much the gentleman for _that_.

After – after all this was over, would she be welcome here? Her whole world reduced to a space perhaps a dozen paces wide, and a little less than that in length; the little cabin to the side not even a sanctuary, as it (and the cot, and everything the act implied) would be shared? Or would she have to stay ashore, plying her needle or politicking on her husband’s behalf, or her father’s? Surely the latter – if there were children –

Her mother was at least twenty-three, when she bore Elizabeth. She wasn’t – she didn’t want children. Not yet.

(Elizabeth drew her hand across her middle, pulling the shirt taut across her belly –)

And therein lay crux of the matter: did it matter what she wanted? Against what she thought was the best choice she had any right to hope for? James Norrington _was_ a good man; he was intelligent and liked her wit and her ability; he’d never raise a hand against her. Elizabeth only –

She was the Governor’s daughter; she would always be Weatherby Swann’s daughter. James Norrington was an ambitious man, and an intelligent one: she was pretty and well-bred and well-endowered, with an Uncle at the Admiralty and more cousins in Parliament than any honest subject of the King should have. She’d been on the deck of the _Interceptor_ , splinters in her bare feet, not a day passed; for a few delirious hours, her destiny had been down to her own choices. Terrifying, yes.

Intoxicating – exhilarating, _yes_.

In her heart of hearts, she wanted a different life than the one chance or the Almighty had given her, and if He wanted to call her ungrateful for it, He was welcome to spend a day in a world He had allegedly blessed with free will, and somehow forgotten the _freedom_ for nearly every being with a soul.

Elizabeth fell on the tankard of water ravenously, resentfully, even as it already tasted stale from the casks – and used her borrowed sleeve as a napkin in an admittedly petty act of defiance. If it had been a wild dream, it was one she was glad she’d had; if this was the end of her girlhood dreams likewise, then it was for as noble a cause as any she could think of. Will would be safe – she would marry, as she always would. She wouldn’t want, in her future, for shelter or security or human kindness.

 _Will would be safe._ That was a choice left to her, the consequences of which she would gladly take.

Buckling her too-large shoes, Elizabeth strode out into the gloomy evening, shutting the door to the cabin as she went. The quarterdeck was nearly deserted. Only two of the men stood by the wheel, and Lieutenant Gillette, looking as though he had been stuffed and mounted, stood by them, very clearly acting as though he was not watching the binnacle – and that the _Dauntless_ ’s compass was not swooping and wavering in the same way as Norrington’s – _as James’s_ , she corrected herself – tell-tale compass was.

“Commodore Norrington?”

“Up there, ma’am,” the second lieutenant of the _Dauntless_ replied, nodding towards the poop deck.

Elizabeth, shorn of her skirts, clambered up the ladder, and hailed the two men.

Neither of them responded, for a long moment; the two having been bent over Jack’s compass, apparently pondering the same difficulty which had brought her to the deck. Were they as disconcerted as her? She continued on: “The tell-tale. It’s – _disrupted_ somehow. Are we – ”

_All right? On course? Will we make it to the Isla de Muerta in time?_

_Can we still save Will?_

James (she would use his Christian name; she only needed _practice_ ) looked from the old compass in his hand and up to her, an unreadable expression twisting his face.

“Captain Sparrow’s compass, happily, is unaffected,” he replied, “And our course for Isla de Muerta is fair. Do not – do not worry, Miss Swann.”

He handed the compass back to the pirate – excused himself with a polite, almost coldly formal bow to her – and vanished down the ladder, headed below.

Elizabeth glanced behind her as she approached Jack, feeling as though there was something she had missed or not been party to; Jack himself was looking at her half-warily, as though there was something else of his to burn (she supposed), and tying the compass back to his belt in a flourish of silver rings and half-golden smiles. “All rested up, Sleepin’ Beauty?” he asked, with a wicked wink Monsieur Perrault would never have approved of in any of his contes du temps passe. Perhaps Jack Sparrow had more of the wicked fae about him than she had suspected from that first glance on the Port Royal docks – she didn’t wholly trust him, but they had a common cause. At least, for the present they did.

“Was he lying, Jack?”

“Who, Norrington? Nah. I got this compass off a one-time sea-goddess for a song, as it were; it’ll take worse than Barbossa’s particular curse to put us all off course.”

The sea-story (but then, mightn’t it be true? If there was an unfindable island with a cursed treasure, why shouldn’t Jack Sparrow have charmed a goddess out of a magical compass?) had her rolling her eyes, but the hard promise brought _relief_ – relief of a kind, at least. After this adventure was over, she knew it was only a few weeks until she’d be standing before the altar at St. Peter’s.

There was that wicked, knowing smile again. “You up for this little last bit of trouble, Lizzie? You’re not home yet.”

**Author's Note:**

> For Elle ([islacruces](https://archiveofourown.org/users/islacruces) / [lieutenantnorrington](https://lieutenantnorrington.tumblr.com/)) - happy birthday, happy holidays, thank you for two of the [BEST](https://lieutenantnorrington.tumblr.com/post/635581315085991937/potc-meme-characters-36-james-norrington) [EDITS](https://lieutenantnorrington.tumblr.com/post/637308068068294656/nellie-paid-attention-but-badly-wanted-to-ask) Ever, and being so patient with a fic that's more than two months overdue!
> 
> Jack mentions in passing the Wanki River (also called the Rio Coco, presently) and "Miskito Kingdom" - an area on the eastern coasts of present-day Honduras and Nicaragua which had been claimed by both the English and the Spanish as part of their imperial ambitions and conquests in the Americas, but in the 18th century remained fairly autonomous; the Miskito were able to force recognition and concessions from the English particularly in this period. "King Jeremy" was a leader referred to as such by the English in the early part of the 18th century.
> 
> The compass metaphor is ... really obvious, I grant you all; this fic started with this first section, of Elizabeth staring up at the tell-tale compass in Norrington's cabin and went from there. Jack's compass was just too good to pass up, following that! (granted, you could say this contradicts the "Peas in a Pod" deleted scene from CotBP, which I'll admit; as far as Norrington's antipathy towards Jack's compass in DMC, my excuse to keep this canonical is that Norrington was pretty drunk and angry at the time?)
> 
> There's nothing in canon that says Isla de Muerta causes compasses to malfunction, but it seemed a nice touch, and a reasonable possibility for why no one can find it unless they know where they're going. Norrington's search for an explanation for why this is happening has some basis in fact - iron can derange magnetic compasses, but that tends to be pretty obvious, and isn't what at work here. In passing, he mentions Sir Edmund Halley's wet-compass, and the wet compasses which had been in use in China **far** in advance of Halley's version; as far as magnetic anomalies go, he mentions in passing the investigations of João de Castro, a 16th c Portuguese colonist, later Viceroy, in India, of declination variations near Mumbai - which were evenutally translated/circulated in English.
> 
> The optical illusion/ _fata morgana_ Jack and Norrington reference in the Strait of Messina is a real phenomenon, and the 17th century English natural philosopher Walter Charleton did advance the theory that Jack rejects out of hand here; it is _Pirates of the Caribbean_ , he may be onto something after all?
> 
> Same story, different versions, and all are true, to quote Calypso herself over Jack's stories of how he got the compass; Bimini, the legend goes, was the name of the place in which the Fountain of Youth existed - in the present, it's the name of three islands within the Bahamas, and the Bimini Road a geologic or manmade feature off the coast which has been the subject of a great deal of debate over the past half-century.
> 
> I borrowed Norrington's backstory/family history from Rob Kidd's _Sins of the Father_ ; I cannot take responsibility for that particular bit of misery. (the name of his childhood home is my invention, though!)
> 
> Lastly, many, many thanks to [SpaceCaseWriter13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceCaseWriter13) / [theonlyredcar](https://theonlyredcar.tumblr.com/) for proofreading, trouble-shooting, and putting up with my usual rounds of writer's nonsense.


End file.
